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Color Changing Digital PC Fan Controller

About: I finally graduated from Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T, formerly University of Missouri Rolla) with a computer engineering degree. Originally from Belleville, IL (St. Louis are...
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We've all seen LED fans that you can put in your computer to make it look cool. They usually come in blue, sometimes red or green and consist of a basic PC fan with 4 bright LED's mounted in the 4 corners. They source their voltage from the fan's power input, so if you're using a fan controller (either the one built into your motherboard or otherwise) to slow the fan, the LED's get dim.

Well, I got a new case for my server and it took 120mm fans, so I had to buy new fans for it. I got a nice blue LED fan for the front but one of the LED's was burned out and it didn't look good, plus the fan was loud and I was out of controllable channels on my motherboard. I got a free replacement for the bad LED, but I already had my mind set on converting the fan with the bad LED into something much better using what I'd learned about microcontrollers last Fall. The plan? A self-contained, digital, full control fan controller based around an AVR microcontroller that could have fine control over the fan's speed, read back the RPM, and control not just the brightness of the LEDs but also the color. Having seen a lot of cool projects using RGB (red-green-blue) LED's online, I figured it would be a good project.

Step 1: Find a Suitable Fan for Modification.

If you don't have an LED fan already, you can't just convert a plain fan. The fan I am using cost $5 on NewEgg and they sent me a free replacement for one bad LED (yet they let me keep the "bad" one so I used it for this project).

Things you want:

Clear plastic. Tinted plastic may give unwanted effects (but if you want to try, go ahead, it may produce a neat effect, I tried one RGB LED on a blue-tinted fan and it looked OK). Black plastic won't give you the same effect, though I've seen LED fans that have black plastic and they do give the LED lines when spinning.

3rd wire (RPM sensor wire). This wire (usually yellow or white) is what fan controllers use to count RPM. It pulls low (connects to ground) twice per revolution of the fan, so you count falling edges per minute and divide by 2 (or count falling edges per second, divide by 2, and then multiply by 60).

3-pin connector. The 3-pin connector is a PC fan standard, it's the connector that motherboards use and it's the connector I designed my controller to use. Some newer fans that use 4 pin connectors won't work for this project. It may have a 4-pin Molex (power supply) connector, I just cut it off and used that connector to connect the fan controller to my computer's power supply.

Step 2: Parts List

Transistors:
1 - PNP, I used D1616 (NPN) and B1116 (PNP) transistors, they're capable of 1A current
1 - NPN If you use any other transistors, they MUST BE ECB (where base is on the end, not the middle). This is different from most other transistors I've seen and didn't notice until I tested them after I ordered them. They were cheap though so w/e.

Here is where I ordered them:
http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Fairchild-Semiconductor/KSD1616YBU/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMuCl5o%252b%2fAuPoF6bPDHyecV%252bopNRXL9NXYU%3d
http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Fairchild-Semiconductor/KSB1116AGBU/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMuCl5o%252b%2fAuPoF6bPDHyecV%252bD5J9z1SsUW0%3d

Capacitors:
5 - 1.0 uF capacitors, I just used some little blue ones, they're either ceramic or similar, not electrolytic.

Resistors:
3 - 1KOhm, 1/4 watt (though you could get by with 1/8 watt easily)
2 - 10KOhm, 1/4 watt (also could use 1/8 watt)
12 - 300 Ohm, 1/4 watt (might be able to use 1/8 watt, these handle the LED current)

LED's:
4 - 5mm, Common Cathode RGB LED's - I used clear (not diffused) ones and diffused them with sandpaper. I think regular diffused ones would probably be "too diffused" and be a bit dim. I got a 50 pack of these RGB LED's on eBay from China, was only $15 shipped, compare to Mouser's $2.00 per single LED before shipping.

Connectors:
I used 0.1" (2.54mm) breakaway pin headers for all my connections. To connect to them, I got a 32-pin rectangular connector that fits 0.1" pin headers and then cut it into pieces. I got one that was through hole so it had pins that were easy to solder to.

PCB:
Copper-clad, single sided PCB that is at least probably 4"x2". I used a 6x6" and there's room to make at least 2 more.

Printer:
A laser printer to print the PCB design, just any old laser printer should work.

Step 3: Remove the Original Fan LED's.

To start out, you need to modify the fan so it has RGB LED's in it. The hardest part is removing the old LED's as they're probably glued in pretty well. I just took a small screwdriver and pushed them out from the front (be careful around the fan blades, don't break them!). After pushing them out, I desoldered the blue LED's and put them in my parts bin (they still work, so they'll be useful later). I then taped up the LED wires with clear tape so it wouldn't short out.

After this, plug the fan back in and make sure it spins without the LED's.

Step 4: Solder Wires to the RGB LED's.

I used flat ribbon cable for this. You need 4-wire cable that is thin enough to wrap around the fan without too much work. Ribbon cable (not the really flat stuff, but like IDE cord type wire) is very good for this as you can tape it to the outside of the fan. Use pliers to bend the leads from the LED at a 90 degree angle. Keep the bend close to the base of the LED so that it won't stick out of the fan or obstruct the fan mounting holes.

After bending, carefully solder the 4 wires to the 4 pins of the LED. Don't leave the soldering iron touching the LED for a long time as LED's are sensitive to heat and you could burn out one or all of the colors, rendering that LED useless. In case this does happen, try "zapping" the non-functioning LED with 5 volts (no resistor). I had the blue LED on one of mine not work, but after hitting it with straight 5V for like 5 seconds, it started working and works fine now.

Clip the excess leads and put tape or glue around the connections to protect them.

Repeat until you have 4 RGB LED's that have wires coming off of them. Make sure you know which wire goes to which (test them with a battery, the longest pin on the LED is the ground [cathode] and the others are red, green, and blue, find out what is what with a battery and remember it or write it down). Test to make sure all the colors light up when connected as well.

Step 5: Install the RGB LED's in the Fan

This is a pretty easy step. Look where the motor wire comes out of the fan. This is where we want the LED wires to come out as well. Start with the two LED's closest to it. Angle them so that the cable coming off the LED is going towards the motor wire and push the LED's into place. You don't have to glue them in unless they don't fit very well otherwise. Use transparent tape (I used the cheap Walmart stuff that is truly clear) to tape the LED cables tight against the fan. Then put in the other two LED's also with their cables wrapping around on top of the other LED cables, tape them down and then tape the 4 cables together (you should have a clean looking square bundle of wires and then tape this bundle to the motor wire. Your RGB fan is almost complete, now for something to control it with.

Step 6: Prototype the Circuit (Optional)

If you like using a breadboard to test things before making the PCB, now is your chance. Stick your Mega168 and MAX232 in a breadboard, put the 2 1uF capacitors on the MAX232, hook the MAX232 to a serial port and the microcontroller's Tx/Rx pins, hook up a 5V regulator and power the two chips, and then follow the LED wiring pinout below to hook the AVR to the LED's:

Pin 14 (PB0): Red 1
Pin 15 (PB1): Green 1
Pin 16 (PB2): Blue 1

Pin 17 (PB3): Red 2
Pin 18 (PB4): Green 2
Pin 19 (PB5): Blue 2

Pin 23 (PC0): Red 3
Pin 24 (PC1): Green 3
Pin 25 (PC2): Blue 3

Pin 26 (PC3): Red 4
Pin 27 (PC4): Green 4
Pin 28 (PC5): Blue 4

Hook each connection through a 300 ohm resistor, and connect the 4 LED ground pins to ground.

Connect the fan motor by putting a 1K Ohm resistor from Pin 5 (OC2B) to the base of the NPN transistor. Connect the middle pin of the transistor to a 10K Ohm resistor which then connects to the base of the PNP transistor. Connect the remaining pin of the NPN to ground, the middle of the PNP to the fan motor, and the remaining pin of the PNP to your 12V (or whatever you're using for a power supply, I breadboarded mine with a 9V because I had one lying around, still good enough for a test). Connect the fan's ground to the breadboard ground, connect the yellow wire to a 10KOhm resistor and also to a 1KOhm resistor. The 10KOhm goes to +5V while the 1KOhm goes to AVR pin 11 (T1). Also put a 1uF between pin 11 and ground to smooth out the signal.

Hook up your programmer to the AVR and download the code onto it (the code is at the end of this Instructable). See Step 11, you have to set the fuse bits on the AVR to disable the internal clock divider. The clock/8 bit is turned on by default and needs to be disabled before the code will work. After installing the AVR code onto the updated AVR, open up the client app and try turning on the fan. It should light up and spin perfectly. At this step you can either just shove your breadboard in your PC and call it done, or you can do it right and make a PCB.

Step 7: Create the PCB

I designed the PCB in Eagle CAD, but it's already done so you can just download the PDF and print it out. I've included 4 of them in the PCB if you want extras.

The method I used is the "toner transfer method". What you do is print the PCB design out on a laser printer. It MUST be a laser printer, inkjet printers use liquid ink that will not transfer like toner does. Then, cut the design out of the paper, leaving just a little white around it (just make it square, don't try to follow the lines). Clean the copper surface of a blank copper clad board, then lay the paper (printed side down) against the PCB. Notice that the printout is mirror imaged, this is on purpose as it will flip when transferred to the board.

Put the PCB blank side down against a heat resistant surface, with the paper face down on top of the copper. Then get a hot clothes iron and press it down against the paper. This will melt the toner, adhering it to the PCB. Put a fair amount of pressure down on it to make sure every bit of it melts. Lif the iron up, rotate it, and put it back down (don't drag it across the paper, you might smear the toner if it's hot). Keep changing the orientation to cover every bit of the paper with full heat. This may take a few tries to master the technique but it's an easy way to make nice boards on the cheap.

After heating, take the PCB and let it cool down (it will probably be too hot to pick up at first). After it's cool enough to carry, take it and submerge it in soapy warm water. VERY GENTLY start rubbing the back of the paper with your finger (not your fingernail, that will scratch the paper and could damage the transfer. After the water has soaked in a bit, you can start to gently pick apart the paper starting at the outside. You should be able to get at least the top layers of the paper to start to peel off without pulling up any of the toner. After most of the paper is gone, gently rub the paper with a bit of pressure to break up the paper fibers that still may have toner attached to them. Get as much of the paper as you can off without damaging the toner, you can etch around a bit of paper threads but once the toner is gone it is hard to fix.

If you mess up, you can use acetone (nail polish remover) to remove the toner and start over, you can also use a scouring pad to gently scrape it away, though a scouring pad may damage the copper layer if you use it too much. Keep trying until you get one that is perfect or very close. I had one pad fall off and a few minor breaks in mine. I touched them up with a Sharpie marker but the etchant still ate through it.

After you've got your board ready, cut the part of the board you want out of any board you want to keep unused with a dremel. Then take the board that you want to etch and stick it in some etchant solution (I used ferric chloride, but there are many things that will dissolve copper).

Wear rubber gloves when doing this, it will keep your hands from turning weird colors and staining things, also do this over some newspaper and I would recommend doing it in the garage or unfinished basement so you don't stain carpet or nice floors.

After etching, there should be no copper visible but under the black toner. This means it's ready, take the board out and then use acetone (nail polish remover) to get rid of the black toner and expose the copper. Now you're ready to solder, assuming there are no major missing parts (a little break isn't a big problem, you can bridge it with solder, a missing pad is harder to fix, but mine was close enough to the trace that it bridged easily.

After you get the toner off, use a tiny drill bit and a drill press to drill the holes. I used a cheap $15 drill with a "drill stand", a holder that makes a cheap drill into a cheap drill press. I used some tiny drill bits that were for model railroading to drill the tiny holes. There are a lot of holes to drill, don't miss any, and drill starting at the copper side because it's easy to line up the hole right where it's marked on the board. Take your time and it shouldn't be a problem.

After drilling the holes, go over the board and look for any spots where the copper didn't dissolve between two traces. There were a few spots that I had to cut out with a knife, one was the SCK line shorted with the AVCC and wouldn't program but works great after I scraped out the tiny flake of copper bridging the traces.

Step 8: Start Inserting Components.

This is a pretty easy step if you're good with a soldering iron. Just make sure you line everything up right and you'll be good. Look at the circuit board diagram for lining up the chips. Use the diagram below to see what goes where, I've labeled the entire thing. Note that this is a top-down view, the copper layer is the bottom so look at the side where there isn't copper, that's what the diagram is.

Remember to solder in the IC sockets and not the IC's themselves, make sure you orient the sockets according to the diagram and then plug the IC's in the same direction.

For the jumpers, I just used the rest of the resistor leads that I clipped off after soldering in the resistors. If you solder in the resistors first, save the clipped leads, they make good jumpers. There are 3 jumpers on this board (the resistor right next to the ISP header is a mistake, it should be a jumper).

Step 9: Finish Inserting Components, Make Cables.

Once you've finished inserting components, you need to make the cables. The board should have components in every spot. You'll need to make 2 cables (Power and Data), attach a pin connector to the RGB LED's on the fan, and make sure the fan's 3-pin connector fits the 3-pin connector here. Also, if you haven't done so already, insert the two IC's into their sockets making sure you get them in the correct orientation.

To make the power cable, take a 4-pin section of the rectangular connector and solder wires to each pin. The two in the middle are ground, the one on the left (as according to the picture) is +12V, and the one on the right is +5V. The other end is a standard 4-pin Molex connector that connects to your PC's power supply.

For the serial cable, one end is a 3-pin section from the rectangular connector. I soldered a 3-pin ribbon cable on to it, the top-most pin according to the image below is ground, under that is Rx from the PC, and the front-most pin is Tx from the PC. If your PC has an internal COM port (a 10-pin header on the motherboard near the rear COM port, usually has one corner pin removed), use a 5x2 rectangular connector (or 2 strips of 5 glued together, or just 3 individual ones since you only need 3 pins connected to that block) and solder them. You may have to look up the exact pinout of the motherboard header. Otherwise just solder a standard DB-9 female connector to it, run it out the back of your PC, and plug it into the rear port.

If you want to use USB, you can use a USB to serial adapter and modify it to connect to the serial port, or you can take the attached Eagle PCB file and modify it to use an FTDI chip instead of a MAX232, but that is beyond the scope of this Instructable.

Step 10: Attach a Pin Connector to the Fan LED's

The fan has 4 groups of 4 LED wires coming off of it. Starting at the right on the PCB connector, it goes:

Take a 16-pin section of the rectangular connector and solder the LED's in that order (you do remember what order the LED's are in, right ;-) )

When you're done soldering it, use hot glue to glue a protective form around the soldered pins, there's a lot of tiny wires and hot glue will keep them from pulling apart. It's only useful if you glue past the insulation break or the exposed metal will snap. Then wrap the whole thing in tape to make sure. Finish by grouping the fan wires with tape segments from the plug all the way to the fan until it is one single cord. Tape the fan's power cord to this as well. When it's done, it should look a lot like the picture below, and plugging it in (if you programmed the AVR in step 6) should cause all the lights to light up. If there's a missing color, you know where to look (I had 2 LED's that didn't light up, turns out there were tiny breaks on their PCB traces, bridged them and it works great).

Step 11: Test and Install

Now it's time to see how it works. Plug the serial port into the PC, plug the power cord into your power supply (make sure you orient it right on both ends, +12V goes on the LEFT looking at the board from the top), plug the fan in (so that the tabs face towards the center of the board) and plug in the fan LED's (so that the ground pin goes on the RIGHT). Turn on the power.

You'll need your AVR programmer now. The first thing you want to do is change the frequency of the internal oscillator. By default, ATMega168's come with the clock/8 internal prescaler enabled. This causes the chip to run too slow for this application and the LED's will just flash without glowing solid (or at least appearing to using PWM). You need to reprogram the fuse bits to turn off the prescaler.

Using AVRdude, this is accomplished by the options:

-U lfuse:w:0xe2:m-U hfuse:w:0xdf:m-U efuse:w:0xf9:m

After applying these, the lights should fade smoothly and serial communication at 19200 baudrate should work using the supplied Windows or Linux GUI program (download at the end of this Instructable). If so, the board works fine and you can install it. This depends on your case, so just install the fan as usual and mount the controller board however you can (I used tape, it's basic but it works). Also remember to insulate the board so it doesn't short out against the case frame.

Step 12: The End (and Here's the Files)

The software provided is now almost complete! I have RPM monitoring working and my Windows GUI is nearly complete. I also added save-states so that the fan will turn on to its default speed along with the LED's when the PC first turns on. The cross-fading also works, but I haven't documented the protcol entirely yet.

All serial frames follow this format:

0xAA | Command byte | Value byte | 0xFF

Some commands don't take a value, but you must send a value byte to fill the 4-byte frame,
the value you send is ignored, 0x00 will do (so will anything else).

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31 Discussions

Cool project, but why not start with something like the Adafruit trinket (or others they have that are newer and more featureful). I have a trinket I bought just to play with, so I may give this a try. I think all I'll need is the two transistors and some passive parts.

Good project, I opted for an easier option. I got two colour changing solar lamps (for the garden), dismantled them, took out the board with colour leds. Now because each was 1.5 volts I connected them in series and put the positive on the orange wire on the 24 pin motherboard connector and the negative to any 3 of the black wires. The I just mounted then into the fan and I all works perfect. P.S: I did this on the heat sink fan on my open server.

I'm working on a new protocol for the "FanBus" RGB Fan Controller system. The "FanBus" design (see my more recent Instructable) is designed to have more than one fan on a serial port, but otherwise is identical hardware. I'm using the original design built here as a test bed for new software, this time running the serial line at 38400 baud (up from 19200) and implementing a new register-based protocol that should make communications more reliable (designed so that collisions should be impossible).

The new framing is:

0x00 0xFF

This is a write operation, for a read, a value of 0x01 is used instead for the start byte. To prevent collisions or framing errors, the value may NOT be 0x00, 0x01, or 0xFF (as if these were allowed, a misaligned frame could be read incorrectly as valid). As for the internal register address, the new scheme sets up a virtual register bank which consists of pointers to code variables, allowing quicker, simpler reads and writes of values without a long chain of if/else or switch/case statements. In tests it is performing well, and I got my Processing audio script up and running with it which looks epic. I need to clean up the code and revise the initialization sequence to get the save-to-EEPROM and fade-in operations fixed, then push the code to my 3 FanBus controllers in my desktop to do a multi-unit test. Just goes to show that hardware isn't the only thing, a nice software/firmware update can make a HUGE difference!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQJaOcYtfAg For some reason the embedding didn't work, but here's a video of my new RGB fan system in my new computer. The Processing script processes the audio output and uses the fan LED's for audio visualization.

AWESOME! if i had the parts i would do this. it looks totally awesome. i wish my case fan had leds, too bad its flat black. but thats where chrome spray paint comes in! (then i'll add my own, no matter what anyone says)

Lol, wow! I'm going to build a new gaming desktop in the next few weeks, looks like I'll have to build another one of these. I'm going to use an Antec 900 case which has two front fans, each with 3 LED's instead of 4, so I may modify the design for 6 LED's.

I'm using an Antec 902 Case (Essentially the same but for a few minor details), and I have to say, it's great. Are you going to light up the "Big-Boy" fan on the top, because I personally think that would be awesome. You'd need more than four LEDs though, I'd think.

I finished installing the RGB fan in my 900 case (I just used the one I already built, though my new design is in progress). It looks really nice in the side panel. My new design is what I'm calling "FanBus", a modified i2c bus interface where each fan has a small surface-mount PCB attached that has a microcontroller for the LED's and fan speed/RPM feedback. The fans will connect in a chain to a master device (probably a front panel with 2x16 LCD) which will interface it all to the PC via USB or serial. I'm working on a self-addressing i2c using a chain (addresses each chip down the chain until it gets to the end). This should allow me to light up the two front fans (which I'm going to replace with clear fans) and the side fan, maybe the top "Big Boy" fan if I can figure out how to put LED's in it and read RPM from it. The rear fans (I have two rear 120mm's sandwiching a Corsair H50 radiator) will probably be the TriCool fans pulled from the front since lighting the back isn't as important. I'll also build an LED light bar with a microcontroller and 5 or so RGB LED's to just light up the inside of the case. Combined with a Processing script to process audio from the stereo mix input it will look awesome with music.

I finally designed the new boards. I am using a half-duplex serial bus at 5V levels to communicate with multiple boards. The "master" is simply a MAX232 board with molex connector and RS-232 connector. It then connects using a 4 pin connector to each fan controller board (Ground, Data, +5, +12). The serial line is pulled up by a resistor and the transmit pins pull down using diodes to create the signals. The hardest part will be fitting the fans into my Antec 900 case's front fan mounts which are cramped and have no room for running wires.

sorry for the late reply. that cicuit board was used because my 64mb video cards fan dies, and i installed a new one. i didn't feel like cutting off the plug, so i soldered together a board so i plugged the fan in, and a floppy molex connector in. (pointless, i know) but you may/may not be happy to hear that i have migrated the internals into a new case. this case has a plastic (but i call it acrylic) sheet on the front which is edge lit by the power led and the hdd led. very nice, i have to say. i would have uploaded photos but i cant find my camera... unfortunately, the wires arent very much more organized. im building a gaming pc soon too. 1gb ddr RAM in 4 of the available 8 slots,a pentium 4, and possibly a 256mb agp card. (so its not very much of a gaming pc... but it would be the most top of the line pc ive ever owned.) im doing a led fan mod contraption maker recently posted, and it works.

AWESOME! A1 Job, I Really Like this project and It is definately On My to do List now, I am just trying to learn some things here and even Bought Me a Arduino Duemilanove to mess around with, But still am trying to do Code, and of Coarse Not very good at making Boards yet either, so If you happen to have a Board or Two available I surely could use. Please!! :) But anyhow Great Job!! 5 Stars all the way! and a Fav... Respect, WarLockStar

I only ever made one board, the one in the pictures. Making boards is pretty easy and cheap if you have access to a laser printer, you just print out the board design and iron it on to a blank copper clad PCB (buy on Digi-Key, Mouser, or other electronics store). Then you etch it with etching solution (you can make this using household chemicals, there are Instructables on it, or you can buy ferric chloride etchant).

I would recommend learning to code first before trying to make boards. Start by learning the Arduino and then try working with a bare AVR chip alone (the Arduino uses a different programming environment than AVR C).

Also, if you don't have one yet, buy a breadboard. They are incredibly useful tools for wiring up projects.

lol ok thank you, and yes I have several breadboards already and some other AVR programmers and misc mess of lots of chips and things I bought a Crap-load from a few Places in Hong Kong a while Back, started by Making a 3x3x3 LED Cube, and after Made a 4x4x4 but got stuck on trying to make code for it to work, the 3x3x3 was easier I had pretty much someone Gave me the outline for doing that one, and then I Bought RGB LEDs to Make another One But that was just before I got Ill and Had to take a break from it all... But yeah i was Hoping you Had any of the boards layin around.. :) it would Have Made things easier for me to do this Mod lol thank you for your Fast reply! Respect, WarlockStar

I finally got a music visualizer working for the fan. I wrote the code a while ago and never posted about it, but I've been tweaking it to make it better. Right now it's just written in Processing but it looks awesome. I'll post a video soon.